tally, to
recover the heads of some mutual friends of ours--a white-trader, his
white wife and children, and his white clerk. The expedition was
successful, and Mr. Woodford concluded his account of the episode with a
statement to the effect: "What especially struck me was the absence of
pain and terror in their faces, which seemed to express, rather, serenity
and repose"--this, mind you, of men and women of his own race whom he
knew well and who had sat at dinner with him in his own house.

Other friends, with whom I have sat at dinner in the brave, rollicking
days in the Solomons have since passed out--by the same way. My
goodness! I sailed in the teak-built ketch, the _Minota_, on a
blackbirding cruise to Malaita, and I took my wife along. The hatchet-
marks were still raw on the door of our tiny stateroom advertising an
event of a few months before. The event was the taking of Captain
Mackenzie's head, Captain Mackenzie, at that time, being master of the
Minota. As we sailed in to Langa-Langa, the British cruiser, the
_Cambrian_, steamed out from the shelling of a village.

It is not expedient to burden this preliminary to my story with further
details, which I do make asseveration I possess a-plenty. I hope I have
given some assurance that the adventures of my dog hero in this novel are
real adventures in a very real cannibal world. Bless you!--when I took
my wife along on the cruise of the _Minota_, we found on board a nigger-
chasing, adorable Irish terrier puppy, who was smooth-coated like Jerry,
and whose name was Peggy. Had it not been for Peggy, this book would
never have been written. She was the chattel of the _Minota's_ splendid
skipper. So much did Mrs. London and I come to love her, that Mrs.
London, after the wreck of the _Minota_, deliberately and shamelessly
stole her from the _Minota's_ skipper. I do further admit that I did,
deliberately and shamelessly, compound my wife's felony. We loved Peggy
so! Dear royal, glorious little dog, buried at sea off the east coast of
Australia!

I must add that Peggy, like Jerry, was born at Meringe Lagoon, on Meringe
Plantation, which is of the Island of Ysabel, said Ysabel Island lying
next north of Florida Island, where is the seat of government and where
dwells the Resident Commissioner, Mr. C. M. Woodford. Still further and
finally, I knew Peggy's mother and father well, and have often known the
warm surge in the heart of me at the sight of tha